Lulu wanted to directly slice the short ape into two and end it but the ape looked up from the fire herb on the ground and started to beat it's chest as it showed its rock fangs to them and shouted:
"OHOHOHOH AHHHH"
It seemed it wasn't an intelligent animal as it couldn't talk, even though its cultivation was relatively high it seemed to not develop intelligence at all, it had the average IQ of a normal ape.
Lulu's sword slashes directly went to the rock animal's neck but her sword got stuck inside its thick neck.
Lulu frowned as she tried to recover her sword, but its big rock paws swiped towards her head and tried to choke her, she backed away and let go of her sword. The sword now sat in the things neck and Lulu had only one sword on her back now.
Lulu didn't understand how her premium strong sword couldn't slash through the ape's neck, even though it was made of rock, if she put her whole force in her slash she could slash through two or three mountains!
Yun Jhin shook his head as he saw Lulu's poor attempt at killing the beast, he gave her a try to see more of her abilities, he knew about her trump card but wasn't acquainted with all of her other abilities, it seemed he overestimated her, she didn't even realize that her swords weren't going to do well in this type of environment even after he saw him forge a new sword.
Yun Jhin unsheathed his katana as he slid his fingers on the blade dripping three drops of blood on it from his cut fingers, the blade started to emanate a cold wave of energy as it turned into a frost blade.
The cold energy started to anger the ape as it beat it's chest and took out the sword from its neck and started to wield it, it didn't have a good swordsmanship form and it only took the sword to try and imitate Yun Jhin and Lulu.
The ape jumped creating a small crater where it stood previously and appeared in front of Yun Jhin.
But Yun Jhin wasn't in the same spot as before, he appeared where the ape stood and quickly unearthed the fire herb that the ape eyed and stuffed it into his spatial ring after he used his ki to seal its properties.
The ape became extremely angry as it saw its food being taken away, it slapped its chest aggressively as he used the sword to slash at Lulu as she was nearby, Lulu took a defensive stance but she was almost sent flying by the ape, even though it was 2 cultivation realms below her, it's innate strength was higher.
That didn't stop Lulu, she gritted her teeth as she closed her eyes for a split second before breathing in and out, when she opened her eyes she was behind the ape and the ape now had three deep cuts on its chest that dripped lava.
The ape looked at the cuts then started screeching like the mad animal it was, it threw the sword away as it rushed towards Lulu its mouth was open as it tried to bite Lulu's head off.
Lulu wasn't scared as she flashed around the ape trying to disorient it, she picked her sword from the ground where the ape threw it and clashed both swords together, she was ready to use another attack. However, her eyes widened as she saw the slashes on the ape's chest heal up.
Yun Jhin decided he had seen enough after he saw the ape starting to heal, if Lulu would have had some appropriate weapons the ape would have been dead by now, she did well enough, Yun Jhin appeared in front of the ape and thrust his katana deep into his chest before he rotated it, an explosion of ice occurred inside the ape's chest as it transformed into an ice sculpture starting from its fiery insides.
The ice sculpture broke seconds later as a shiny beast core dropped to the ground, the beast core started to melt the ice pieces that remained from the ape, Yun Jhin used his ki to cover his hand then picked up the core. Then he used a caging technique to seal the core and he put it in his spatial ring.
Lulu was breathing quite hard as the environment started to take a toll on her, she sheathed her swords as she looked at Yun Jhin and asked:
"What do you think we should do now?"
Yun Jhin shook his head as he took out a pill from his spatial ring and threw it to her then told her:
"Eat this pill, it should quickly recover the ki that you used, we are going to search for more herbs, this is only one that I need, we still have 10 days of waiting in this region before we have to move to the next one, I'm also feeling pretty unthreatened at the fringes of the region, we will need to go in further."
Lulu nodded slowly at him then she asked with a meek tone:
"Could you help me enchant my swords with some frost formations... I don't think they would be able to last long in this environment."
Her premium strong swords were almost getting melted by the heat around, only her ki reshaped them into a normal form. Yun Jhin took both swords from her and did a few hand seals, some ice formations were inscribed on the blade of the swords which made them resistant to the heat. They would also do more damage to the living beings inside the danger zone.
Lulu gave Yun Jhin a big smile and a peck on the cheek after she got her swords back, Yun Jhin ignored her kiss and then said:
"Now that I enchanted your swords we will go further in, I'm very interested to see which kind of memories I will unlock now."
Lulu kept quiet as they started to walk further into the region, one day passed this way, on the way to the volcano they met with a few beasts similar to the ape that they dealt with, they also got the other herbs that Yun Jhin needed, he only needed 1 more before he could say that he gained whatever he could from the region considering his cultivation base.
Yun Jhin played on the Emperor's hands on the surface, but the reason he truly wanted to go to the four danger zones was that the second stage of the King Realm required the four elements to be inscribed in his jewel, with the four elements in one jewel he would be able to expand on his abilities in the future and gain a perfect elemental body, while his body might change and evolve since the crown was fused with his soul, his perfect elemental body would transfer.
The pill he would create with the herbs and inner beast cores from the four regions would make him able to rush to the 9th stage of the refinery of the first jewel and maybe even break through the second stage of the King Realm, the pill also helped with creating the four elements jewels, technically speaking, most other King Realm practitioners would get to have 1 jewel per element and that would take space on the crown limiting their future potential and battle power.
Lulu was this way, she already embedded her crown with 4 elements and was on the 6th stage, the 1st stage was the awakening of the most important ability, the 2-5th stage would be the four elemental jewels, the 6th one would be the bodily strength enhancement, the 7th the soul one, the 8th would be another ability that would strengthen the battle power of the practitioner and the last one would be the coup de grace of the King Realm expert.
The 9th stage would combine the former abilities and enhancements from all of the former jewels and strengthen them up to a factor of x3, granting an overall boost to the practitioner's body and soul while also giving him a new combined ability, this is why King Realm experts at the 9th stage were called true kings, they were so powerful no other people in the same realm would be able to do anything to them and they could kill whole armies of people under the 9th stage.
As Yun Jhin went further inside the danger zone, Lulu could observe that his clothing was special just like his sword, it protected him from the innate heat of the lava around them as well as the arid environment meaning he didn't even sweat, her armor was different in the sense that it absorbed all of the fire elemental energy in the air and released it when she battled with the mutated beasts, however, it was detrimental for her as the elemental energy made them heal up and strengthen themselves. So Yun Jhin told her to suppress the release part of the armor in fights.
Such an armor would have been quite useful in normal fights, but in such an environment it would be useless to deal with the mutated beasts born from fire and molten lava.
Yun Jhin and Lulu were around 1000 kilometers away from the volcano and they couldn't go further as the heat that bared upon the duo was making them sweat intensely even with the help of their special treasures.
Yun Jhin looked around as a deep blue light appeared in his eyes, he was searching for the final herb, even though 10 days already passed he didn't leave the danger zone as he needed to gather the herb, the Emperor also didn't say that they specifically needed to leave the danger zone after 10 days went by.
Black Blood himself was quite puzzled why the duo didn't leave the danger zone as he observed them using his soul willpower, he saw how they gathered herbs and killed beasts here and there but the Empire already had such herbs and they could ask for them from the Emperor after the training expedition ended, why would they risk their lives for herbs?
Yun Jhin looked around for a short while before he spotted the herb he needed, it was shaped like a red snake and it lived in a nearby lava puddle, it was hissing intensely as it sensed Yun Jhin's gaze, the herb was special as it was alive and dead at the same time, once it left the lava it would become inanimate but as long as it sat in it, it would act just like a normal living snake.
Yun Jhin watched as the snake dove into the puddle and made itself unseen, however with the help of his eye technique he could see that it was still in the puddle hiding, taking the snake out of the lava would be quite an annoying ordeal but he could do it.
He slapped his arm a few times as countless frost formations took over it, then he took a black glove out of his spatial ring and put it on his left hand, the glove contracted on his hand with a swish sound as it turned deep blue, an icy crystal appeared in the middle of it as Yun Jhin quickly plunged his hand in the lava puddle.
The snake hissed as it tried to bite Yun Jhin's gloved hand but that was what Yun Jhin wanted, the snake hisses turned from aggressive into those one made in pain as it's little body turned into frost, Yun Jhin took it's body out of the lava puddle as the glove burned to ashes and his arm along with it, he grasped the icy snake with his right hand as he burned the ice layer off and then caged the snake inside a formation, even though it looked dead on the surface, it could revive in any moment in this type of environment.
He put the snake inside his spatial ring and looked as Lulu's eyes wandered to his missing arm, he chuckled as he patted his armless shoulder and said:
"It will grow back."
Lulu didn't question him, after all, his current body wasn't his true one, it was just his body being compressed into an ideal form that he wanted using ki techniques, he wasn't at this full potential in this form but he could use quite a lot of techniques easier, even though he was lacking in raw strength in this form, he could make it up with quite a lot of techniques, this was the difference between humans and cultivation beasts it was skill vs strength.
Yun Jhin and Lulu started to retreat from the danger zone and after a long while they exited it successfully without a hitch, they were stopped by some other mutated animals along the way but they made quick work off them, however, Yun Jhin's arm still didn't grow back.
Yun Jhin knew how to restore his arm even while being under the Sage Realm, he was a God Realm expert in his former life and even though it wouldn't grow back under normal circumstances, he had countless ways to restore it.
Even though he was missing one arm, Yun Jhin didn't seem any different, Lulu questioned him a few times on the way why his arm didn't grow back, but Yun Jhin replied that it just wasn't time yet.
Lulu became skeptical after a few days passed and they neared the earth danger zone, would Yun Jhin's arm truly grow back? Wasn't that the power only those at the Sage Realm and above enjoyed?
But Lulu decided to not comment further, in the end, they had two God Realm experts holding the fort, they must have a way to restore his missing arm right?
Yun Jhin knew what Lulu was thinking about and it made him happy that she started to think like that about him, that meant he was slowly entering her heart without her knowing it, sooner or later he would be able to enjoy himself as the Imperial Prince in the Empire, then he would be able to move way easier in the upper continents as long as he said that he didn't run for the throne, as long as he knew where to thread the enemies of the Empire wouldn't be able to touch him.
Lulu exclaimed as she looked down at the giant canyon in front of her and said:
"What a big hole... do we have to jump down in it and live inside there for 10 days?"
"Yes."
The formation cores inside their bodies were already reacting, seemingly as if they tried to push them from the cliff directly inside the canyon!
Yun Jhin patted Lulu's shoulder then pushed her forward making her free fall down from the preposterous cliff then jumped himself soon after while he said:
"Ladies first!"
Angry shouts could be heard from below him, some were even threats but Yun Jhin ignored them as at one point he used his ki to slow his fall then he gripped a big rock slab that stuck out from the canyon wall and looked below him, Lulu was also gripping one such slab as she glared at him then freed one hand to give him the middle finger.
Yun Jhin ignored her childish attempts at angering him then started to climb down using more rock slabs that appeared more and more on the way down.
Slowly but surely the formation cores inside both his and Lulu's bodies were starting to act up, meaning they would soon reach the outskirts of the earth danger zone!